Parquet floorboard



April 8, 1969 p o osso 3,436,888

PARQUET FLOORBOARD Filed Oct. 20. 1966 IN VEN TOR.

PAR AXEL EU/VE OWOSSO/V BY United States Patent ()fiice 3,436,888 PARQUET FLOORBOARD Par A. R. Ottosson, Linneavagen 6, Nybro, Sweden Filed Oct. 20, 1966, Ser. No. 588,211

Claims priority, application Sweden, Oct. 20, 1965,

13,579/ 65 Int. 'Cl. E06b 3/84; E041 13/08; E04c 1/16 U.S. Cl. 52-480 1 Claim ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A parquet floorboard construction wherein a plurality of underlying rectangular supporting blocks are arranged in a row in side-by-side relation with the supporting blocks extending at an angle of substantially 45 degrees relative to the longitudinal direction of the row. A plurality of rectangular parquet blocks are arranged on top of the supporting blocks with the longitudinal direction of the parquet blocks extending substantially at an angle of 90 degrees relative to the supporting blocks. The supporting blocks preferably have a length substantially equal to a whole multiple of the width of the individual parquet blocks to permit a plurality of adjacent parquet blocks to be fixedly secured thereto.

In the construction of glued together parquet floorboards it is important that all block elements forming part of the floorboard should effectively lock each other with regard to the direction of the fibers in the respective block elements. By this reason it has been practice to produce glued parquet floorboards in such a way, that the top layer, i.e., the layer including the parquet blocks, has been arranged with the fibers at right angles to the fiber direction of the underlying supporting layer. Parquet floorboards produced in this manner cannot be used for making so called fishbone-pattern parquet, i.e., a parquet having adjacent rows of parquet blocks so arranged, that the separate blocks form a 90 angle with each other. Only all square or rectangular patterns have hitherto proved to be possible in practice. compromises have been suggested for producing fishbone-pattern parquet floorboards, whereby the separate blocks have been arranged and glued on to a board in a row in the longitudinal direction of the board, the blocks forming a 45 angle with the longitudinal direction of the board. Such a construction will in practice gradually warp under the unavoidable influence of moisture and drying. Apparently such a construction is not duly locked with regard to the fiber directions. In a board produced in said manner a problem will be involved, in that the corners of the parquet blocks will extend beyond the longitudinal edges, or at least one longitudinal edge, of the supporting board, whereby in the latter case one side of the corner portion of the block will stay unglued and without locking. Even if the corners extending beyond a longitudinal edge, when a number of boards are mounted together, may be supported by the supporting board of the adjacent parquet board, the total COHSII'tlCllOH presents a solution of the said problem, which is entirely unsatisfactory, as has been confirmed by prac- I tical tests. Obviously, certain portions of the parquet blocks stay entirely unglued and without locking, irrespective of the fact that they are supported by the supporting base layer. It has also been suggested to arrange blocks for parquet floors in fishbone-pattern on a support consisting of fiberboard or the like. Also in this case it has in practice become apparent, that similar solutions are far from satisfactory and cannot by far compare with either conventionally made parquet floors or parquet floorboards as glued in current manner and having right angle locking of the glued elements.

3,436,888 Patented Apr. 8, 1969 The present invention relates to a simple way of solving these problems and produce a parquet floorboard for fishbone-pattern parquet laying, which is as easy to make and mount as the said type of parquet floorboards comprising right angle pattern parquet blocks as referred to above, which boards are subject to tension.

In particular, the present invention relates to a parquet floorboard assembly wherein a number of underlying rectangular elongated supporting blocks are arranged in a row in side-by-side relation with the individual supporting blocks extending at an angle of approximately 45 degrees relative to the longitudinal direction of the row. A plurality of elongated, rectangular parquet blocks are mounted on top of the row of supporting blocks with the elongated direction of the individual parquet blocks extending at an angle of degrees relative to the elongated direction of the supporting blocks. The parquet blocks are preferably made with the fiber thereof extending substantially in their longitudinal direction. The underlying support blocks preferably have a width slightly less than the width of the parquet blocks and also preferably have a length which is substantially equal to a whole multiple of the Width of the parquet blocks so as to permit a plurality of individual parquet blocks to be fixedly secured to a single underlying support block. The opposite longitudinal edges of the parquet board assembly have a zigzag shape whereupon a plurality of similar parquet board assemblies can be positioned in side-by-side relationship with the zigzag side edges being interlocked and in abutting engagement with one another, the individual parquet board assemblies preferably being locked together by means of a tongue or filler element extending between and secured to the adjacent underlying support blocks.

The blocks supporting the parquet blocks have a length, which is a whole multiple of the width of the parquet blocks.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, the present invention is described morein detail; thus FIG. 1 shows a perspective view with broken out parts and a fragmentary section of an embodiment of the invention as built together to form a parquet floor; FIG. 2 is a view as seen along arrows IIII in FIG. 1 and FIG. 3 is a view as seen along arrows III-III in FIG. 2, i.e., a parquet floorboard seen from below.

The parquet floorboard as shown consists of thin parquet blocks 1 and supporting blocks 2, which supporting blocks 2 as illustrated in FIG. 2 are preferably materially thicker than the parquet blocks 1. As clearly appearing from FIG. 3, the parquet blocks and the supporting underlying blocks form a 90 angle with each other. It will be seen that a supporting block has a length substantially corresponding to a whole multiple of the Width of a parquet block. Consequently, a supporting block in the foregoing example may connect and contribute to the locking of six parquet blocks. Considering for example a supporting block 3 in FIG. 3, it will be understood that this block is locking one end portion of the parquet block 4, intermediate portions of the parquet blocks 5, 6, 7, 8 and one end portion of the parquet block 9. The Width of a supporting block should be equal to or somewhat less than the with of a parquet block. Since the parquet blocks are arranged in a 45 angle in relation to the longitudinal direction of the parquet floorboard, each one of the free side-edge surfaces of each parquet block end portion Will be equal to the width of the parquet block. The supporting block, along its laterally extending end portion, will then come to close contact with the said free side-edge of the parquet block along its entire length. In order to avoid Warping of the board it is in practice preferred, as shown in FIG. 3, to arrange for a certain play or clearance space 10 between adjacent supporting blocks, this play being attained by making the supporting blocks a little shorter and narrower than the said parquet blocks. For a close alignment between the blocks forming the actual parquet layer of two adjacent parquet floorboards it is important that the supporting :blocks in the respective boards do not meet, which might cause a play to appear between the parquet blocks of the respective boards. For joining two parquet floorboards together, a groove 11 is made in the edge of each board, which groove is preferably extended from the outer edge corner of the supporting blocks into the bottom corner of the serrated edge of the board. In the groove 11 tongue or filler element, 12 is introduced and glued to the blocks, so that an efiective joint between adjacent parquet floorboards is established.

It will be understood that a very simple construction of a parquet fioorboard is presented by the invention, whereby a complete 90 locking of the parquet blocks in relation to the underlying blocks is achieved. It a further stabilization of the construction is desired, a veneer sheet or the like can be glued to the bottom side of the underlying bl-ocks. In this way the construction can be made very rigid and strong for use as self-supporting floor elements.

I claim:

1. A parquet floorboard assembly, comprising:

a plurality of underlying elongated, rectangular supporting blocks arranged in a first row and positioned in closely spaced, side-by-side and parallel relation with the individual supporting blocks in said row extending at an angle of substantially 45 degrees relative to the longitudinally extending direction of said row;

a plurality of elongated, rectangular and adjacent parquet blocks arranged in a second row positioned directly on top of said first row of supporting blocks, said parquet blocks being arranged in side-by-side and parallel relation with the individual parquet blocks extending at an angle of substantially 90 degrees relative to the lengthwise extent of said supporting blocks;

said supporting blocks having a width slightly less than the width of the parquet blocks so as to define a space therebetween and having a length substantially equal to a whole multiple of the width of the individual parquet blocks but slightly shorter whereby a space is provided between the opposed ends of support blocks of a pair of parquet floorboard assemblies placed adjacent each other, said supporting blocks ibeing materially thicker than said parquet blocks; and

said rectangular parquet and supporting blocks having opposite ends which cooperate to define zigzag-shaped edges which extend longitudinally along opposite sides of said rows.

2/1929 Great Britain. 9/ 1909 Austria.

FRANK L. ABBOTT, Primary Examiner.

30 S. D. BURKE, Assistant Examiner.

US. Cl. X.R. 5239l, 586 

